Busy Coast Pianist Joins in Salute to Rubinstein Singers, Played Chamber Music, Did by HAROLD C

L Busy Coast Pianist Joins In Salute to Rubinstein singers, played chamber music, did By HAROLD C. SCHONBERG some jazz.” He also started entering competitions. In his very first one, Call it a shared Carnegie Hall the Clara Haskil in Switzerland, he debut. Jeffrey Kahane, the West took second place. He tried’ the Coast pianist, will be playiñg there Chopin Competition in Warsaw. “I tomorrow night, along with Leonard did not do so great,” he said with a Bernstein, Jerome Lowenthal and the wry grin. He had his ups and downs. 11-year-old Israeli prodigy, Elisha Then came the Clibum and Rubin Abas. The occasion is the concert of stein, and now Mr. Kahane is se the America-Israel Cultural Founda curely established. tion honoring the memory of Arthur With the new demands on him, his Rubinstein, who died last Dec. 20. repertory has expanded. Previously, It is specially appropriate for Mr. he had concentrated on the classics Kahane to be one of the four pianists, from Bach through the 19th century. for only last April he won the fourth Now he is beginning to examine 20th- Arthur Rubinstein International oentury music, and has in his reper Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. But he tory such pieces as the Elliott Carter already had attracted national atten Sonata and the Aaron Copland Fanta tion when he took fourth place, two sy. years ago, at the Van Clibum Compe The Music, Not the Player tition in Forth Worth. His style? “I have not thought Mr. Kahane is having a busy few about it very much,” he said. “I have days. In addition to playing solo been exposed to many influences pieces by Albéniz and Schumann, and Gimpel was a Romantic, concerned (with Mr. Lowenthal at the second with the poetic and dramatic aspects piano) two movements from Rach of a piece. But I also worked wit maninoff’s Second Suite tomorrow, Paul Hersh, who was more in th, he will also be playing a Mozart con Schnabel intellectual tradition. 1 try certo (B flat, K. 450) Tuesday in as best I can to draw upon all I have Carnegie Hall with the Los Angeles experienced. I find it hard to catego Philharmonic under Andrew Davis. rize myself. I think about the music, That will be Mr. Kahane’s New York not about what kind of player lam.’ concerto debut. One thing he is always thinking Short, slim, intense, sensitive look about is the problem of capturing the ing, with a mass of hair that puts him essence of the' Romantic music in bis in the Paderewski and Percy repertory. He is fascinated by record Grainger class, the 27-year-old Mr. ings of pianists bom in the 19th cen Kahane has the reputation of being a tury — pianists like Ignaz Friedman, poetic pianist rather than a heaven Josef Lhevinne and Josef Hofmann. stormer. At the Clibum competition, He says they were not only great tech he was the artist most admired by the nicians, as great as anybody alive other contestants. It was his prize in today, but that in addition they looked the Clibum, he says, that really at the music in a different way. started his career. Thanks to all the “It was something in the nature of attention, in which he was a promi their experience,” Mr. Kahane said. nent figure, he was approached by a “The world was such a different place manager, and dates started to come then. They represented a Weltan in. When he won the Rubinstein, the schauung that we can’t recapture, phones started ringing and have not and we have to look at them through a stopped yet. This season, Mr. Kahane different lens. There’s an. enormous has had all the concerts he cares to amount to be learned from them — handle, and already he is almost sol their quality, sound, range of color, idly booked for next season. their rhetoric and declamatibn, their Debut in San Francisco spiritual affinity to the score. But iS it Up to his big prizes, his career had possible to recapture something that followed the course of any ambitious was to them a living art? We have to young pianist. Bom in Los Angeles, find our own way of reconciling our he was attracted to the piano when he modem temperament with the older was 4, started lessons at 5, found he style. They were free spirits. They had perfect pitch and at 15 went to the even sometimes changed the notes. prominent pianist and teacher Jacob We today would find that impossible Gimpel. He did not work with Mr. to do.” And Mr. Kahane shuddered Gimpel for more than a year, but con visibly at the very notion of changing siders him a seminal figure in his a note. “See?” he grinned... “I m a musical development. At 16, he en child of my time.” tered the San Francisco Conservato Tickets for tomorow night’s 8 o’ ry, from which he graduated five clock concert at Carnegie Hall, Sev years later. He made his debüt in San enth Avenue and 57th Street, are $7.50 Francisco in 1978. and $10. Information: 247-7459. “I had a patchwork career,” Mr. Kahane said the other day. “In San Availability of theater tick Francisco I was a freelance. I was part-time official pianist for the San ets appears on page C8. Francisco Symphony. I accompanied .

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